Tuesday, January 7, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 7th of January 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

As you may know, yesterday was the Feast of Epiphany, the “revelation of the Christ Child” to the Gentiles and, in particular, the Magi, to whom we devoted a Weekend Edition two weekends ago. 

With the corresponding “12th Day of Christmas,” we might put the whole thing to bed. In our “Christmas History Almanac,” we noted many Eastern Traditions that use a Julian Calendar. Many will be celebrating Christmas today, and we talked about some of those Christians’ regional varieties.

But just as there is not a simple East/West division in the church, there is also no easy “Gregorian” or “Julian” divide- for there is another calendar and tradition- that of the Coptic Christians. “Coptic,” which you can understand as “Egyptian” traditions, has long used the Egyptian solar calendar. This Calendar would be synchronized with the Julian so that the Coptic and Eastern Churches currently have similar dates- but it is a different calendar! For instance, this calendar’s “Year 1” is marked from our 284 AD- the year Diocletian began his persecution of Christians- such that they don’t say “AD” for “Anno Domini: Year of Our Lord” but instead “AM” for Anno Martyrum” or “Year of Our Martyrs”- so they are currently in their year 1740.

I am a fan of this calendar if only for the fact that it has 13 months. However, the first 12 months are all 30 days long. If I were Coptic, I might not have to count my knuckles to figure out how many days are in any given month.

According to the Coptic Calendar, Jesus was born on the 19th day of the 4th month of Kiahk, which corresponds to the 25th of December on the Gregorian Calendar and the 7th of January on the Julian calendar.

So, despite my desire to make this show a plea for us all to unite over one calendar, doing it regularly reminds me how difficult calendars are to regulate.

And of all the various traditions we talked about this past season (past for some of us), we made the sometimes regular oversight of our brothers and sisters in the Tahawedo tradition- that Ethiopian (and now also Eritrean) church that has long been cut off from the rest of the world.

The Ethiopian Tawahedo Church is one of the “Oriental Orthodox” churches, that make up 20% of all Orthodox Churches and number about 60 million worldwide.

Like other “Oriental Orthodox” churches, they broke with the others by rejecting the Council of Chalcedon in 451. For this reason, they are sometimes called “Mono” or “Mia-physite” because they don’t hold to the same definition of how the divine and human nature relates to one another in the person of Jesus. But don’t let anyone tell you they “reject” the two natures- they emphasize the “unity” over “diversity” of the natures- in fact, “Tawahedo” means “unification” and not of church bodies- but of the two natures. Their rejection of the council of Chalcedon had more to do with rejecting Greek and Roman church bodies determining doctrine for the fiercely independent Ethiopian church, which would be cut off from the rest of the world with 7^th-century Muslim expansion.

But you could forget all of this if you were just to hear the Ethiopian Tawahedo Christmas tradition, which should be noted by coffee lovers everywhere.

Ethiopia is the traditional birthplace of coffee- the story of Kaldi and his goats in the 9th century and all that. And you can add the tradition of the Magi, at least some of them, coming from Ethiopia. And then you could ask- how could they stay awake that whole time going to Bethlehem? 

And voila—we get the Ethiopian Christmas Coffee celebration—er, sacrament (depending on how you define those). Coffee is roasted on a pan next to… frankincense, one of the Magi’s gifts! Then, you are to drink the coffee in a three-part ceremony, resting the beans until the last cup is consumed. And while this might seem extreme, their Christmas services, which started last night at 6 p.m., go until 3 a.m., so neither the Magi nor the churchgoers could sleep.

So raise a cup if you are inclined (I’ve got a Miraflores from Honduras through an Aeropress today), and let’s give our last Christmas wishes of the year on this, the 19th day of the fourth month of Kiahk.

The last word for today from Ephesians 6 and the basis for some well meaning Christian Halloween costumes:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 7th of January 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man with, at my count- 4 single-origin Ethiopian coffees at Gillespie.coffee - he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man whose new Burr grinder competes with the Potato Ricer for his favorite Christmas gift- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.